Looking for a carrier suggestion

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potalot89

New member
I'm currently on a Verizon family plan with my parents. My girlfriend is on one as well, with her own family. Well, we are engaged now and at some point we want to get our own plan.

For a while now, I've been reading about phones to possibly replace my RAZR. Problem is, with all the phone research I've done, I neglected to look into carriers.

To be honest, what phone I get doesn't matter to me. I have really just two requirements: I really want QWERTY text input and I want the phone to not suck. Nothing else matters and I know that every carrier probably offers something like this. So what I really want is a suggestion on which carrier to go to.

Currently we're both on Verizon. Verizon has a little advantage in that they have a good coverage area and we'd get free calls to our own families. But we don't use many airtime minutes anyway, so that's not a huge advantage.

I looked into Page Plus, but after reading about their poor customer service I'm not so sure it's the best idea. And it might be great for individual plans, but for multiple phones, not so much.

So, to summarize, I'm looking for a carrier that has the following qualities:

- Not too expensive for a two-line plan
- Decent customer service, not too many hoops to jump through to get things working
- Has phones that are QWERTY and don't suck

That's really all I need. Maybe it would help if someone could sort of summarize what different carriers offer, because it can be hard to figure some of that stuff out.
 
your requirements will probably be satisfied by pretty much any carrier. verizon and ATT are the big two carriers. ATT is gsm so sim cards lets you swap phones and use any phone you like. verizon doesnt have this advantage but verizon does probably have better overall coverage than ATT.

tmobile and sprint are smaller carriers but cheaper. tmobile is gsm so sim cards are an advantage, but they have small 3g coverage for now.

i really would say go with the one with best coverage in your area of work and play.
 
Look at where you will use the device, where you live, work, travel and play, and pick the carrier that has the best coverage in those areas. DO NOT trust the coverage maps. Talk to friends, family, co-workers etc and get the scoop from them.

IMHO, if Verizon works for you, then why would you jump from a known carrier to one you don't have any history with?
 
Two good posts above mine. I would really look into coverage, and possibly factor in that most of your calls are to fellow Verizon customers, as that really is a big advantage.

My wife and I are in the same position, with most of family and friends on Verizon. Well, this month, we have nearly exhausted all of our 700 anytime minutes making calls to various cable and satellite providers getting our cable/satellite/internet situation back to normal. Luckily, we can still call friends and family without the fear of going over our allotted minutes.
 
That's a good point. Even though we don't use much talk time, I guess we'll probably just stick with Verizon in order to keep that benefit. And we know that Verizon has good coverage in every place where each of us need it.

The only thing that gave me pause was T-Mobile's new plan where you can elect to "pay off" your subsidized phone or choose to get a lower monthly rate and no contract in exchange for having to buy a phone at full price. Seemed very honest of them to give you the choice, whereas with Verizon there's very little benefit to not signing up for a 2-year contract and getting a subsidized phone (other than not being in a contract).
 
You will make up in a potential lack of coverage with T-Mobile in comparison to Verizon possibly depending on your locations. It is nice that they offer that, but you are better off going with the better network. You already said that Verizon offers good coverage everywhere you go. Why fix what isn't broken?
 
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